The goal of this study is to examine possible changes in physical health related to occupational retirement and to detail the nature of these changes and the circumstances under which they occur. This study will employ multivariate longitudinal data in a quasi-experimental design in order to overcome limitations of previous studies and yield information of practical importance. The study population of 900 males will be drawn from among the participants in the Veterans Administration Normative Aging Study in Boston. Two groups will be utilized from this population: (1) men employed at time of baseline physical examination but retired at time of second examination; (2) a control group of men employed at both examination times. The interval between examination times is 3 years. Physical examination data are currently available from the parent study, as are psychosocial data from a preretirement questionnaire. Follow-up data on the work and retirement situations of the two groups will be collected in the course of this project. Health status at both examinations will be assessed by self-report and by objective measures. Retirees and their working age peers will be compared for differential patterns of health change while controlling for intervening variables such as income, occupational type and attitudes toward work and retirement.